


The Rotten Core

by starfishstar



Series: Golden, Ripe and Rotten [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, the summer Gellert Grindelwald spent in Godric's Hollow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-23
Updated: 2015-02-23
Packaged: 2018-03-14 16:48:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3418193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starfishstar/pseuds/starfishstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And still, for one endless second, Albus thinks Gellert might say, <i>I’ll stay.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Rotten Core

**Author's Note:**

> _“Did I know, in my heart of hearts, what Gellert Grindelwald was? I think I did, but I closed my eyes.” – Albus Dumbledore, Chapter 35 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows_
> 
> Thank you to [stereolightning](http://archiveofourown.org/users/phalaenopsis/pseuds/stereolightning) for beta-reading!

 

“Go,” Albus says. “Get out.” Everything inside him is twisting, wringing, as if a giant has shoved its hand inside his ribcage and is tearing out pieces. Inside the house, behind where Albus stands paralysed in the doorway, Aberforth is wailing, a horrible, animal sound Albus has never heard from his brother, and Ariana is – is –  
   
“Yes, I’m going,” Gellert hisses. His lips are white, he’s pressing them so tightly together. Albus never dreamed he would see Gellert scared, Gellert with his brilliant smiled vanished, his beautiful features twisting.  
   
Gellert stands outside the door, tensed, ready to flee, with the afternoon sun behind him making a strange halo of his bright hair. They had been so close to escaping into the wide world of their glorious future together, Albus and Gellert.  
   
And then Aberforth had –  
   
And Gellert had –  
   
And Ariana –  
   
Albus stands inside the door, frozen, his hand gripping the doorframe, his heart tearing itself apart in his chest. Behind him, Aberforth kneels on the floor, cradling their sister’s warm body, and his keening reverberates inside Albus’ head, rattling all of his body like wild summer storm. Not a minute ago, Ariana was crying out in alarm, flinging out a hand to stop their crazed duel, calling, “Al –”  
   
And then Gellert shouted, and Aberforth raised his wand, and Albus cast a spell, and Gellert fired off a bright streak of light, and then –  
   
And then –  
   
*  
   
Albus had never loved anything as much as he loved kissing Gellert.  
   
They would tumble down in the long grass together, Gellert’s deft fingers tracing lines along Albus’ skin as he told of the great deeds they would do, the letters he had sent to friends on the Continent, the replies he had received, the plans that were falling into place.  
   
And Albus, overcome with the brilliant future Gellert painted in the air before them, would reach out and clasp Gellert’s hand, press kisses to Gellert’s intoxicating lips. Gellert smirked, sometimes, when Albus kissed him, as if it were a favour he granted Albus because it amused him to do so.  
   
But Albus chose to see that smirk as simply another of the infinite permutations of Gellert’s glorious smile, and he loved all of Gellert’s smiles. So when Gellert smirked, Albus closed his eyes and kissed him harder.  
   
*  
   
Gellert’s eyes took on a crazed light whenever they talked of the Hallows.  
   
Albus had only to say the words “Resurrection Stone” or “Deathstick”, and Gellert’s speech grew faster, more frenzied, his careful accent slipping down the slick sides of his words.  
   
“Our power,” he would say. “Oh, Albus, the unfathomable power of our armies, our wand, our stone, our cloak…” And sometimes, his words tumbling out faster than thought:  
   
“My wand, my stone, my cloak.”  
   
Gellert was the most brilliant mind, the most talented wizard, Albus had ever met, and surely he wanted to harness the Hallows for the sake of good. Surely he wanted to turn all his wild genius and irresistible charm to the wellbeing of humankind.  
   
So when Gellert’s voice rose in a frenzied spiral, Albus chose to hear it simply as proof of Gellert’s passion for magic and all its joys, and he held Gellert close and whispered, “Yes, it will all be yours.”  
   
*  
   
From the moment they met, everything about Gellert had spoken to Albus of magic. His golden skin that seemed to radiate sunlight back at the world. His clever hands that summoned up spells Albus had never dreamt of. His goldenrod hair, impossibly soft between Albus’ fingers, as they lay in a nest of grass and pressed against each other until nothing else in the world existed.  
   
Sometimes, Albus lay his hand over Gellert’s heart and felt a strangeness there, a frightening wildness that was reflected in the beating of Albus’ own heart, the way it sped almost to the point of pain in Gellert’s presence.  
   
Albus chose to feel that as love. And he chose to believe Gellert felt it, too.  
   
*  
   
Now, standing outside the door of Albus’ family’s house, Gellert’s face is a terrifying blank page, gone pale and closed. Everything romantic and beguiling about him has fled, leaving a cruel, cold thing standing in the lane, an alien creature Albus could surely never have loved.  
   
And Aberforth will never forgive him.  
   
And Ariana, his beloved sister, the light of his miserly, selfish life, is gone. She is lost to him, and Albus knows already that he will spend his life rueing his guilt. That knowledge hits him again, and again, and he staggers under it.  
   
He forces out words, past the panicked wringing inside his chest. “Ariana – we – oh, Merlin, Gellert – you – we –”  
   
There’s a harshness Albus has never known in Gellert’s voice as he says, “You can’t blame me for that, Albus.”  
   
White-hot rage shoots through Albus, so sudden his body trembles with it, igniting his grief into something ugly and wild. “Don’t ever come back,” he shouts, hardening his heart, clenching his fists, ruthlessly burying beneath the rubble of his shattered heart any part of him that ever believed in beauty and truth and love.  
   
Gellert stares back at him, his eyes a bottomless, terrifying mirror to the monster Albus has become. Golden Gellert, who raised his wand in anger against Aberforth. White of heart Albus, who charged in despite Ariana’s cry of dismay. Both of them cast the spells. Both of them did the damage.  
   
And then Ariana was on the floor, dead.  
   
“I won’t return,” Gellert whispers, his voice already seeming to carry on the wind from an unimaginably distant place. “Don’t look for me, Albus. I am gone from you.”  
   
And still, for one endless second, Albus thinks Gellert might say, _I’ll stay. Albus, let me stay and help you_.  
   
Or at least, _I’m sorry_.  
   
Instead, Gellert stares a moment longer, then he turns and starts up the lane, the same dusty village lane where he burst into Albus’ life two months before, all brightness and brilliance and the promise of beautiful things. He walks a few paces, then he begins to run.  
   
And Albus turns back to the doorway, to face the rest of his life.

 


End file.
